C.K. Gant

He got his nickname “Preacher” when he was a lad at Pisgah and would mock his family’s rural church pastor.

C.K. Gant played his high school basketball under “Red” Horton, an all-time great at Geraldine and the man who put Pisgah on the basketball map. Gant and the longtime Butler of Huntsville coach T.E. “Cotton” Rogers were teammates at Pisgah. Gant started for the Eagles in 1938, 1939 and 1940. He performed as an All-County and All-District guard. According to the coach back then there were no size divisions. “We played all day for two or three days at a time,” he said. The 1939 team lost one game before losing to Guin 29-14 in the state finals. The next year Pisgah lost to Scottsboro 11-9 in the finals of the district.

After serving in the U.S. Army armored tank division and receiving four major battle stars in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, Gant attended Jacksonville State on scholarship.

Jimmy Smothers of the Gadsden Times wrote of Coach Gant, “There is no denying that he was once the top coach in Alabama, although his teams never won a state championship.”

Gant was a head basketball coach for 17 years, winning an average of 23 per season. Those 17 years were at Springville, Geraldine, Alexandria, Fyffe, Ringgold (Georgia) and Boaz. During one five-year streak, Gant’s teams went 124-12. He coached 10 years before a team failed to win 20 games, and in his worst year his team went 12-12. Gant never had a losing season, while posting a 398-135 record. He took at least one basketball team to the state tournament at each school he coached.

Twenty-two of Gant’s players signed college scholarships with eight of those going to the Southeastern Conference. Those great players include Hob Armstrong, Fred Edmondson and Billy Smothers, all from Geraldine and offered scholarships to Georgia; Rena Watts from Alexandria who played at LSU; and Tommy Wheeler of Boaz received a scholarship to Vanderbilt.

At Geraldine Gant was 91-9 in four seasons. In one year at Alexandria his team went 24-5 and in six seasons at Ringgold his record was 158-37. Gant served as Boaz coach from 1965-1970. His best record at Boaz was 26-8, the year Boaz went to the state tournament. “That was another good bunch,” Gant related. “We had Tommy Wheeler, Sammy Bailey, Jim Smith, Haskell Ashley and some others that were just great.” During his final three years at Boaz, the Pirates won 60 and lost 23.

After his stay at Boaz, Gant got out of the high school ranks and for the next 15 years served as director of the Boaz Neighborhood Facilities Center.

Gant coached both his son and son-in-law, Dan Gant and Moe Smith. Coach Smith is in the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame. Gant’s grandson Casey Smith was hired this year as head coach of women’s golf at Birmingham-Southern. Smith comes to BSC from Pelham High School where he served as head golf coach and head varsity girls basketball coach.

The City of Boaz named the recreation center, a baseball field and a street in honor of C.K. (Coach) Gant.

The youngster that picked up the name “Preacher” because he mocked the family’s rural church pastor was once called on to say a prayer over a seriously ill person. In 1952, his wife Hattie remembers, “We had just moved to Geraldine. A man came to the door in dire need of a preacher. He said a member of his family was seriously ill and asked if ‘the preacher’ would go say a prayer.” She said Gant kept telling the man, “I’m not really a preacher – I’m a basketball coach.” She said her husband was trying to hide a smile, thinking that someone actually could mistake him for a real preacher.

“Bear”, “Shug”, “Wimp” and “Preacher” accepted the fact of their nicknames. Coach Gant might not have liked it, but he was the “Preacher”. That name, along with his record, set him apart.